


Success

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Slice of Life One-Shots [43]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Fluff and Humor, Gen, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 22:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: After hearing about the way the Dursley family treated her father, Lily takes a secret trip to Surrey.





	Success

It had been several months since Vernon Dursley had lost his wife, and he was now looking forward to a perfectly normal Christmas with his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. He had had a particularly enjoyable day at work so far - he had made his secretary cry by tearing down the tinsel she had strung up (well, it was a fire hazard), he had fumed at the marketing department for not managing to make any of his drills go viral on Tweetbook or whatever it was, and he hinted at redundancies that he knew weren’t coming, just to see the panic on people’s faces as they thought about Christmas costs.

He returned to his office at half past one with his customary sausage roll and doughnut from the bakery over the road, looking forward to a lunch in complete silence. As he walked past the reception area, he saw a young girl with red hair - she looked as though she should still be in school - sitting patiently on the uncomfortably firm cushioned chairs. Assuming she was some local schoolgirl looking for some work experience, he bustled past without giving her much thought, ignoring the receptionist as she tried to say something to him. 

He had just settled at his desk and opened up minesweeper to play while he ate his lunch, when the door knocked. ‘Vernon,’ said his secretary nervously, ‘there’s a little girl in reception who wants to talk to you-’

‘I’m busy,’ he muttered, before biting into his sausage roll. 

‘Yes, I said that to her, but she’s very insistent - she’s doing research for her school coursework-’

‘Do I look like a teacher?’ he blustered irritably. ‘Because if I do, I’d bloody well like to finish at half past three and have six weeks off every summer!’

His secretary blushed crimson, and glanced over her shoulder, then said in a low whisper, ‘I understand, it’s just… She mentioned she’s interviewing community leaders and that it might be in the local press… Marketing suggested… after… you know… it might be some good PR…’ 

Ah. Yes. The incident involving his drills and the collapse of Guildford’s Christmas lights as they were turned on had been unfortunate. It would, potentially, be nice to have his name attached to a nice fluff piece, especially if it referred to him as a community leader… 

‘All right,’ he said, closing minesweeper. ‘Send her in.’

His secretary disappeared, and soon the little girl was marching confidently into his office, a clipboard in her hands. ‘Hello, Mr Dursley,’ she said. ‘I’m Lizzie Porter.’

‘Sorry?’ 

‘Lizzie Porter,’ she said again clearly. 

‘Right, yes, pleased to meet you,’ he said, having had his usual minor heart palpitations whenever anything close to ‘Potter’ was said in his vicinity. 

‘Thank you for agreeing to speak to me today.’ The girl sat in the chair opposite his desk, which he thought was a little presumptuous. Her hair was slightly messy, brushing the tops of her shoulders and held back with an aliceband, and her face was splattered with freckles. There was something a little familiar about her, in her expression perhaps, though he wasn’t sure what - she seemed sweet, like butter wouldn’t melt. No doubt she was going to tell him to save the polar bears or replace his Sunday lunch with a bowl of lentils.

‘I’m here today to conduct an interview into attitudes of child rearing and corporal punishment,’ she read out from the top of her clipboard. 

Oh, here we go, he thought. More namby-pamby nonsense. ‘Yes?’ he asked. ‘What’s that got to do with me.’ 

‘We are trying to see if there is a corree… corror…’ her ears went pink and she leaned across his desk and tapped at a word. 

‘Correlation,’ he said. 

‘Yes, sorry, correlation - we are trying to see if there is a correlation in success and attitudes to childrearing. It’s for my sociology coursework,’ she added. 

‘Ah,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. ‘Well, I’m certainly glad to see that schools are starting to at least consider listening to those of us who have made it. Raising a generation of crybabies, we are.’ 

‘Right,’ she said sweetly. ‘So you don’t mind answering a few questions?’

‘Not at all.’ 

‘OK,’ she said, and she cleared her throat. ‘Question one… Do you have any children?’ 

‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘I have a son, Dudley. He’s a fine young man. Didn’t enter the drills business, but is finding his own success as a recruitment agent. Cracking wife and a little girl of his own. What more d’you need, eh?’ 

She nodded with a vague smile and looked at him expectantly, her pen poised over the clipboard. The silence stretched. ‘Do you have any other children?’ she asked. 

‘No,’ he replied.

She blinked at him, and then finally looked down at her clipboard and scrawled something down. ‘Question two,’ she said, ‘what do you think of the ban on smacking children?’ 

‘Load of nonsense,’ he told her firmly. ‘People are too sensitive these days. Sometimes it’s the only thing that works - the occasional box around the ears never did me any harm, did it?’ 

There was something a little sardonic about her smile as she stared at him, and then leaned down to write on her clipboard once again. ‘Question three - did you ever smack your child?’ 

‘He rarely needed it,’ he said proudly. ‘Like I said, it works, doesn’t it?’ 

‘So you would say your child was well behaved?’ 

‘He had his moments, the tyke, kids always do. But of course he was,’ he blustered. ‘He could be boisterous, but we found that was because he had a real knack for boxing.’ 

‘Really?’ said Lizzie. 

‘Indeed,’ he said chuckling proudly. ‘Strong right hook, just like his father. He was regional champion, you know.’ 

She looked surprisingly upset at this, but pressed her lips together and looked back down at her clipboard. Well, he thought scathingly. These days the fine English tradition of boxing was probably seen as “cruel”. ‘Question four,’ she said, ignoring, to his annoyance, Dudley’s achievements. ‘What, in your opinion, is best for children who are placed in the care of relatives or the state?’ 

He eyed her beadily. He was starting to feel highly uncomfortable. What did she know? She couldn’t have found out. There was nothing official about any of it, and he’d Googled his name many times to make sure he was never associated with the boy. There were no photos, either, he had always made sure of that. 

‘What do you mean?’ he growled at her. 

‘What do you think is best for them? To ensure they achieve success.’ 

‘I still don’t follow.’ 

‘Well,’ she said, her voice bright, ‘do you think they deserve loving, stable homes? Or more structured discipline? As part of my coursework, we have to write a proposal to the council about our recommendations for children in the care system with the intention of them achieving success.’

‘Hmmph. Well, you know… Children usually end up in that sort of situation for a reason. Irresponsible parents. The apple never falls far from the tree, you know.’

‘So they need…?’ said Lizzie slowly. 

‘A firm hand is best for them,’ he mumbled. ‘People may not like it, it may not be popular or even accepted these days, but like I said, it’s the only thing that works.’ 

‘Last question,’ she said quickly. ‘Do you think people who abuse or neglect children deserve terrible things to happen to them?’

He shifted awkwardly. ‘Well, that’s quite a broad… Opening a can of worms there, aren’t you?’ he chuckled. ‘I mean, who’s to say… Everyone has different opinions on what constitutes things like that, don’t they?’ 

‘All right,’ she said vaguely, with the tone of someone making stuff up on the spot, ‘imagine, like, if someone locked a child in their room all the time, and it was really horrible with, like, bars on the window and stuff, and they didn’t feed them much and threw things at them and called them nasty names. You would agree that’s abuse, wouldn’t you?’ 

It felt very hot in his office all of a sudden, which was annoying because he had shouted at facilities about the air conditioning only last week and they said they had fixed it. ‘I, er, I suppose,’ he mumbled.

‘So what do you think should happen to those people?’ she asked, her tone still bright and innocent. ‘Should they be punished?’

He stared at her. ‘Why, er…’ he cleared his throat. ‘Why did you come to see me, specifically, about this topic, I really don’t know much about it-’

‘Like I said,’ she replied cheerfully, ‘I’m interviewing local business and community leaders to see how child rearing correlates with success.’ 

‘Right.’ 

‘And this is a successful firm.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘So what do you think?’ 

‘I think…’ he muttered, trying not to gulp. He remembered, vividly, the boy ducking as he launched a shoe at him, and then continuing smoothly up the stairs without breaking gait. ‘It would all depend on a case by case basis, and I can’t really say.’

‘Great,’ she said, her sunny smile returning. ‘Well, I think that’s all, I’ll get out of your - oops!’ She dropped her pen and ducked down under his desk to get it - he rolled back on his chair awkwardly. 

‘Ah, here!’ she said, straightening up. ‘Well, thank you for speaking with me, Mr Dursley! Bye bye!’ 

‘Er… goodbye,’ he said, experiencing the odd sensation that he was missing out on some great joke. 

The girl vanished, quickly followed by Roz from marketing, who looked frantic. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘How did it go? She said it was about inspiring children to reach success, I thought it could be quite good-’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was about whether there’s any sense in traditional discipline.’ 

Roz paled. ‘What did you say?’ 

‘I said of course there bloody was!’ he barked. 

‘Vernon!’ she wailed. ‘I’ll quit, Vernon, I swear I will!’ 

***

A few days later, Lily sat calmly in the living room, wrapping presents for her family, the wireless singing cheerful Christmas jingles in the background. 

The fireplace suddenly leapt into flames and her father, home from work far earlier than usual, stormed out. 

‘Hey!’ she shrieked, throwing herself over the jumper she was wrapping for him. ‘Don’t look!’ 

But he didn’t look; he barely even glanced at her as he stormed to the bottom of the stairs. ‘JAMES!’ he roared up. 

There was a brief pause, and then, from James’s room, ‘WHAT?’ 

‘What’s going on?’ asked Mum, coming into the living room with a frown. Lily hastily hid the bath stuff and candles she’d got her behind her back. 

‘GET DOWN HERE!’ Dad yelled, then he looked at Mum with a stressed, exasperated expression. ‘Your poor dad just came to my office and-’

‘What?’ asked James sourly; he had appeared at the twist of the stairs and was glaring down at them

‘Have you been in Surrey lately?’ Dad demanded. 

‘What?’ spluttered James, looking bewildered. ‘No? Why would I go to Surrey?’ 

‘You haven’t been in the last few days?’ 

James looked around at them all as if they’d gone mad. ‘What are you talking about?’ 

‘Grandad was called to a muggle office today, because a set of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes long delay fireworks were hidden beneath a desk a few days ago,’ said Dad impatiently. ‘They exploded this morning and ran riot through the office. Grandad is STILL trying to sort it out and calm people down.’ 

‘What’s that got to do with me?’ asked James. 

‘It was my uncle’s office,’ said Dad, loudly and slowly. ‘It was his desk. The fireworks blew his trousers off.’ Lily saw her mother turn away sharply, clearly hiding a grin. She herself slowly held up her father’s jumper to cover her mouth, and fought down the urge to giggle.

‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ said James stubbornly. Dad stared at him for a very long time. James stared coolly back, eventually saying, ‘I haven’t been to Surrey since you last dragged us there. Never met your uncle.’ 

Dad swore under his breath, and muttered, ‘fine, it wasn’t you.’ He turned to Mum. ‘Maybe it was Ted.’ 

She frowned at him. ‘Maybe it wasn’t any of our kids, Harry.’ 

‘Was it you?’ he asked sharply. 

‘Of course it wasn’t me!’ 

‘I just think it’s a funny coincidence that out of all the muggles in the world, whoever decided to have a bit of mischief chose my uncle… Just a few months after all the kids got a bit of a shock about how I was treated.’ 

‘What’s going on?’ Al had shuffled into the room behind Mum. ‘I heard shouting…’ 

‘Someone let off a load of fireworks in Dad’s Uncle’s office and it blew his trousers off,’ said James. 

Al let out a ‘hah!’ of laughter, which set Mum off too, her shoulders shaking as she pressed her lips together to stop her laughter from coming out. 

‘It’s not funny, Albus,’ said Dad sternly. 

‘Course it is,’ said Albus. ‘He deserves it, doesn’t he?’ 

‘Did you do this?’ Dad asked, more quietly than he had asked James but somehow still as dangerously. 

‘No,’ said Albus. ‘I don’t know where his office is, do I?’

Dad looked into his eyes for a long time now, green meeting green, but Al stared lazily back, smiling vaguely until Dad huffed and turned away. ‘Right, well, I’m going to Teddy’s,’ he said. 

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Mum, smiling slyly. ‘Harry, I’m sure Dad doesn’t mind,’ she said as they walked over to the fireplace.’ 

‘Of course he doesn’t, he was laughing his head off, but this isn’t the first time he’s had to cover stuff up for us, is it?’ Dad said, reaching for the floo powder. 

He went first, and Mum turned back before she went, her eyes narrowing at them all. ‘It is funny,’ she admitted, ‘and he does deserve it, but the three of you know it’s not acceptable, don’t you? You know what I told you about letting sleeping dragons lie?’ 

‘Mum!’ said James. ‘It wasn’t us.’ 

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘He’ll find it funny too, soon, but really… Don’t do anything like that again.’ And then she took a pinch of floo powder too, and left. 

There was a long silence. ‘Thanks for the fireworks, James,’ said Lily brightly. 

‘Nice work, Lils,’ he replied. 

‘Knew he wouldn’t suspect you,’ said Al. 

‘Not his little girl,’ agreed James.

Lily returned to wrapping up her father’s Christmas jumper. ‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘someone had to do something.’


End file.
